


forever yours, tallulah shark

by spheeris1



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Death, F/F, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:28:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24923890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spheeris1/pseuds/spheeris1
Summary: Eve p.o.v. // one-shot // post S3 and onward // You end up in another city, yawning as you shuffle through the doors of another hotel around two in the morning.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 5
Kudos: 71





	forever yours, tallulah shark

/ / /

**(day five)**

You end up in another city, yawning as you shuffle through the doors of another hotel around two in the morning. Your mouth tastes tacky, like you've not brushed your teeth nearly enough – which is true. Hygiene is the last thing on the mind of someone on the run. At least, that's what you tell yourself as you speak quick and slightly towards the side, bored clerk looking at you strangely and then deciding that he doesn't actually give a damn.

You pay in cash. You heft the bag on your shoulder once more, to remind yourself it is there – whatever is left of your life, that other life that your torched down so willingly – and you push into the room eventually, musty and a little worse for wear and you sit down and you breathe for a moment.

In and out. Out and in. Repeat.

It's exactly one hour later that there's a knock on your door. One knock, then two rapid ones follow. You roll your eyes because she's making fun of you, making fun of your paranoia. Because, yes, it is like a fucking spy movie cliché and “...no one does this, Eve, you just walk right in...”

But it doesn't matter. You ask. And she does.

And this compliance makes you nervous. Makes you warm inside. Turns you upside down and slams you to the floor. And still you tug on the bottom of your wrinkled top. And still you roll your tongue self-consciously around your not-so-fresh mouth. And still you open the door. You guess you'll always open the door for her.

She comes bearing gifts – a paper bag of burgers, with fries slowly going from hot to lukewarm – and you think about kissing her again. You won't headbutt her afterwards either. At least, you don't think you will. Then again, you are fairly unpredictable when it comes to her.

Her shoes come off. She sprawls onto your bed. She eats and gets crumbs everywhere.  
She watches you endlessly. She insists on staying with you, paying for a room that she'll never sleep in.

“It's better this way...,” she says, just like the four nights that have come before this one, “...misdirection is very important.”

You smirk a bit into your food. Misdirection indeed.

And when it is all said and done, no plans made beyond going and going and going until there's a second to think beyond all this moving and evading, she's blinking slowly and reaching out to take your hand and you don't fight it.

You don't fight her and she's not fighting you.  
And you think about kissing her. And you think about how insane all of this is.

And then you both fall asleep, her hand held in your grasp.

/ /

**(day thirteen)**

“Norway?”  
“Yes.”  
“Like... Norway Norway?”  
“Is there another Norway? A double-Norway?”

You push her shoulder. Hard. But you catch her grin out of the corner of your eye, head tilted down in unexpected delight, and tenderness flutters helplessly in your chest. 

She's got money, at least enough to hide for a bit longer. She can make new passports happen. She's got so many names, so many personalities to choose from, and so she'll sink into someone else as simply as you take air into your lungs.

You, on the other hand, well... you've never been the best at creating a false identity.

“Who the hell is Tallulah Shark?”  
“A good friend to me and you.”  
“Are you being serious? I can't tell if you are being serious.”

You shrug and smile as you look back at the map laid out in front you, tracing over the lines of a place you've never been but will soon be your new home. Though home feels odd to think. Home implies where a body takes root, where memories are made, and you don't know if any place can ever be that again. Not with the life you've chosen to lead.

“Are you okay?”

Her voice is unsure, a soft thing stepping up to your ear, and suddenly you realize that the smile has drifted from your lips and you've pressed the pen tip into the margins of this gas station purchase until an inky river starts to form.

And her fingers find your cheek, turn you to face her, and you are reminded of another time not so long ago. Her eyes searching you. Studying you. Making a mental portrait of you, just in case everything that the two of you have been doing goes up in smoke. 

And that's when it hits you, fuller than before, hits you hard. Hard enough to take your breath away, hard enough to truly hurt.

Because you've already taken root somewhere, haven't you? You've taken root inside of her, haven't you?

“Yeah...,” and you gently cover her hand with your own, watch the edges of worry hover around her gaze, “...I'm good. All good.”

/ /

**(day twenty-one)**

You've never been much for traveling. Not really. Time changes and sitting for long periods doing nothing, an endless crowd of faces passing by. Planes are the worst, even if they are the fastest. Trains are better, they feel antiquated – but in a good way. And boats... well, boats sink, don't they?

And they are the cause of sea sickness, too. Can't forget that one.

You've finally reached a night where you aren't throwing up the meager amount of food you've managed to keep down. Sometimes she has patted your back or put a glass of water by your side. Other times she has grimaced at your pale face and sick-covered lips, sitting at the far side of this little cabin.

Once she disappeared for a whole day. You weren't mad or anything. It's not like you wanted a spectator for your grand olympics of intestinal upheaval. But you did worry because you're on the run, the both of you, and if you've been followed – which she swears you haven't but the law of averages is bound to run out eventually – then no one would be the wiser if she or you or the two of you went flying off the side of this ship and froze to death in the North Sea.

_“You can't just do that, okay? If this is going to work...,” and you gesture your hand between your bodies and you watch her eyes flit over your face, “...you've got to keep me in the loop. In all the loops.”_

_And she releases a deep sigh. And she steps closer to you. And she lightly tugs on a strand of your hair._

_“All the loops, hmm?”_  
_“Every single one.”_

_The corner of her mouth turns upward and you could get lost in that subtle curve._

_“Okay.”_

And so you've got your sea legs now. Or, you know, one leg to solidly stand on. You've made your way onto the deck. You've eaten a bit more than just bread. You've watched the ocean, slate gray and fathomless, swirling beneath you and you have wondered if this very same sight has greeted every explorer that has come before you.

And not for the first time, you wonder what you'll find on the other side of this. The other side of England. The other side of marriage and a steady job and a house. The other side of loss and losing, of fuck ups and insatiable frenzy.

You wonder what you'll find on the other side of yourself, if you keep going all the way.

Because what was once a little knife became a swinging ax.  
Because what was once a mirage became ribs cracking underneath your boot.

Which brings to mind Dasha, who you haven't talked about since that night on the bridge. You haven't asked why this woman by your side wants to quit The Twelve either. Or what it means that you both couldn't walk away from each other – like what it means, the ultimate long and short of it.

In all the hours of eating together and falling asleep together and moving from cars to hotel rooms to cars again, neither of you have brought any of it up. Sometimes it's like you've both moved beyond all of that – the need to discuss, to understand, to pull apart the strands of each other until it all makes sense – and you feel like you know her better than anyone. You don't need all her reasons. She doesn't need all your answers. Sometimes the two of you are just like blinking. Beautifully automatic.

And then sometimes... sometimes you catch a shadow in her gaze, a bruise that she cannot cover up, and you believe it goes deeper than anything, and you are desperate to know what it is, where it came from. Sometimes you wish that you could crack her open or that she could do that to you, that everything would spill out in a rush until there was nothing left. Not of you. Not of her. Beautifully blank.

She curls up beside you, mouth slightly open and brow furrowed, eyes shifting fast behind closed eyelids, and you think of the ocean pitching to and fro and you think of all the things you aren't saying, can't say yet, maybe will never know how to say, and you wonder what lies on the other side of this – of the two of you, here and now, running away from all that brought you into each other's worlds – and you know that it can't be good.

Good as in safe anyway.

_“All the loops, hmm?”_  
_“Every single one.”_

Then again, you gave up on safety a long, long time ago, didn't you?

/ /

**(day forty-four)**

There's a routine to this now. Checks and balances. Fake lives and real consequences. You have picked up the basics of the Norwegian language pretty well, though she is much faster. She likes to correct you, which annoys the fuck out of you, but at a certain point you realize it is less about teasing you and more about making you better.

Because “...better means you live longer.” Her words exactly.

You've had to create a budget of sorts, otherwise she'll burn through it all on food alone. She's oddly okay with giving up the high fashion and the nice digs, but she's bound and determined to make up for those sacrifices with astronomical grocery bills. She can cook some things better than you, but you have more experience in other areas. You've both learned to trade off where you can, leaving the stubbornness for her inability to tidy up after herself and your refusal to pick up her slack.

You watch movies together. Which she really, really enjoys. Some comedies. Some horror. A drama or two. She absorbs them and expects you to do the same. She wants to talk about them afterwards, the metaphors and the hidden meanings. Of course, once you indulge and you end up analyzing some scene or character, she'll laugh at you and say “...it's just a movie, Eve.” God, she's such a little shit.

And there's a tenuous tension between you both now, too.

It's not so much an unknown as it is a waiting game. Waiting to be found out by those who probably want you dead. Waiting to see how long either of you can abstain from the chase. Waiting for the other shoe to drop right on your heads.

And, of course, some of that tension is purely physical. Sometimes it's exactly what you know it to be – carnal and frustrating, full of loaded comments and long stares, where you think she'd be bold and yet she holds back, where you feel like slapping her if only to feel her skin against your own... yes, some of this tension is sexual.

Sometimes, though, it is just the terrible pause. Inertia forced onto you, onto her. No more bodies left in her wake. No more riddles to solve as you spin madly around. It's just a holding pattern, these names and this place and all the things you both do to pass the time, to keep sane, to stay alive... yes, some of this tension is in standing painfully still.

“Let me teach you. It's good for you to know.”

She's been harping on you to learn some real self-defense. And you've stayed away from it, not because you don't think she is a little bit right, but because you've both got scars that go deeper than just the skin. There's Paris. There's Rome. There are places on the body that still feel raw, still feel like a new wound, and you're not sure what could happen if you open them up even more.

Just like all the stuff you aren't talking about, this is another realm that you've both been avoiding. At least with words.

You've come to learn, though, that this is her way of getting things out in the open, through activity: jogging, stretching, building, watching and cataloging – this is how she communicates. Of course, you know this because you've been watching and cataloging, too. You have been since the beginning.

And so maybe you haven't pushed her to say what happened to her, why she doesn't want to live that assassination life anymore, but maybe you can push her now. Like really push her. And that'll be enough. For now.

“Okay, fine. Show me some moves.”

She lights up, removing her socks and rolling away the rug from these well-worn wooden floors. She talks about the base of the body, smacking her abdomen, and then she talks about being loose. About noting how another person moves. When to strike, when to keep still. And you pay attention to about fifty percent of what she is saying, spending the rest of the time taking in fresh details – how many times she licks her lips when speaking, how she swallows hard because she is excited, fingers constantly moving (pointing, fluttering, turning into fists) – and the next thing you know, your arm is being jerked and she's got you, other hand going to your shoulder, your non-shot one thankfully, and she's using the momentum to take you both to the ground.

It's not as hard a landing as it could be. Still, it's not exactly soft either.

“Sneak attack lesson...,” you groan out and catch her grinning at you, “...got it.”  
“That's what you get for not paying attention.”  
“I was paying attention. Just not to everything you were saying.”

She murmurs a little 'oh' in response and she's still holding onto your arm, fierce and steady. And you feel her hips against your own, the press of her thigh to yours and you are overcome with the awareness that if you move just a bit, then your legs could open and she'd sink between them. And when she breathes out, you feel her rest heavier onto your chest, and you know what she is saying right now. Even if everything else remains unsaid or ignored...

...you know exactly what she is saying right now.

You are the one kissing her. Again. And your eyes are still open, but you understand now. You don't want to miss anything, not one second of her – her shock, her need, her acquiescence – you want to take it all in and keep it for the rest of you life. However long that might be, which you both know, probably won't be for very long at all.

And the air trips off of her tongue and into your mouth and she trembles against you and so you kiss her more and more and when you roll her over, her body welcomes your weight and she exhales, she shudders and breathes and becomes something so completely yours that you can think of nothing better than this. Better than her and you and this.

Words can wait. Death can wait. 

And you kiss her.  
And she dissolves into you.

/ /

**(day fifty-six)**

“I killed someone.”

You stop just short of saying 'no shit' because something in her eyes tells you that this is not the time for sarcasm. But honestly, what kind of statement is that? She's killed a lot of someones. You've seen the remains. You've watched it all up close. You've even finished a couple for her, though that doesn't need to be thought about right this second.

It's a cold evening and the two of you decided to go for a walk. Just you and her and a billion stars starting to wake up overhead, a few amber-lit windows in the distance and then a town further out, the crunch of snow and ice. Winter is holding out a bit longer.

And she stops and says this out loud, causing you to turn around and pause for more. If there will be more without you prompting her, that is. She seems lost in thought for a moment, stare lingering upon a point you cannot see nor understand. So you do what you do best – you accept.

“Okay.”

And whatever you saw all those many days ago in some sweet dance-hall, the shadow of loss and of brokenness heavy against her jawline, comes back to life on this path somewhere in Norway. It's like she is trying to rein in her own sorrow and failing miserably, lips twisting and eyes going glassy.

“I killed my mother.”

And the gears of your mind stall, just for a moment, before they can begin to churn again, turning and turning until the words make sense and lock into place. You suppose you should feel horror, as if this is the last straw to a person you somehow thought you knew. But you do know her and you've allowed her into your head, into your soul, and so shock is actually the last thing you feel.

And questions bubble up to the surface, strain at your closed mouth. You've never been shy about wanting to figure her out, to know the workings of her mind, what she feels and does she care and so many things. So very many things.

This is different, though.

“What happened?”

Same as before, but with so much changed. And she looks at you now and she reaches out her hand to you and you take it, you take it and hold it and watch her drift back to that distant place, somewhere in the past. And she talks about evil, talks about insanity, wonders at the threads that connect her to the woman who gave birth to her, and you hear vengeance in her voice and you hear desperation, too.

“I...I just wanted her to see me... to see that we were the same...”

And you think of your own mother, the labors of expectation that fell to her shoulders and then from her to you. All the stones that she carried, dreams deferred and American pressures, tradition both a cloak and a curse around her neck. You used to look at her and see a stranger, so stoic and restrained. And you longed for wilder things, to scream and pitch fits. At least until your father passed and then, like all rebelling children do, you sought out a return to all you fled from. You married Niko – good, solid Niko – and your mother didn't approve or disapprove or anything.

You wonder if she saw herself in you then.  
You wonder if she couldn't stand to look at you.

And the hand held by your own flexes, cold fingers working to intertwine, and you aren't sure you have the right words to say. You aren't sure she needs you to say anything either. And so you lean over and lightly kiss her cheek, run your gaze over her face and she stares at you like you are going to fix everything... and oh, how wrong she is... how very wrong...

...but for tonight, you let her believe it and you tug her along as you both walk, letting the darkness cover your tracks.

/ /

**(day eighty-three)**

There's a radio playing somewhere.

That's the first thing you seem to realize, blinking as cold air stutters back into your chest. And then you feel the ground beneath you. And then you feel pain.

And you are reminded of another plot of earth you crashed upon, all because you didn't like being used and she couldn't understand that the ends don't always justify the means. You remember the sensation of blood running out of your body, pooling by your side as if still wishing it could stay with you but knowing that it had to go. You remember feeling anger, feeling chilled, feeling weak, feeling stupid.

You told her about it once, everything you felt on that sunny, horrible afternoon. And she had the good grace to look chagrined. She didn't say she was sorry; that's not a word the two of you know how to say to each other. But she looked truly solemn as she stared up at you from the couch and said:

_“I wish I had not done that.”_

_You laugh, a short and sharp thing._

_“Yeah, me too.”_

_And then she stands up and wraps her arms around you and holds you just a bit too tightly and you can't figure out if she's doing this because that's what people are supposed to do... or if she actually wants to, if she wants to convey a million things she doesn't know how to say..._

_...but you can't be bothered to care because she kisses the side of your head and this isn't about forgiveness, it's about recognition of something much deeper. Because you are both quite good at causing pain to those you love._

_And life is too brief to hold onto grievances for forever._

At least, that's true when it comes to you and her. Not with others. Not with organized crime, the kind that can infiltrate governments and tear apart nations one death at a time. Not with people who think they own others, who consider everyone chattel – to be paid for and then tossed aside at will. Not with this great wheel of political machinations turning and turning, grinding up so many along the way.

You knew there was a target on your back. The woman who knew too much and all that.  
Just like you knew there was a target on her back as well. A bigger one in fact.

Running was only going to get you so far. In the end.

You listen for anything beyond the radio you hear in the distance. You can't make out the song. Then again, you aren't sure if the music is just too far away or if you hit the ground so hard that now your eardrum is fucked. Everything sounds muffled, like you are surrounded by an invisible barrel.

And you move an arm. That hurts a bit. You roll slowly onto your back. Oh, that does hurt. And your head hurts, so you reach up to touch it. Brains still in? Yes, you think so. Is that blood? Yes, sticky and thick. Thick is good. It's wanting to clot. But that's bad because that could mean you've been laying here for a while. Did they think you were dead? Or did they think you'd keep until later?

And you sit up. And your vision swims and your stomach pitches and you grit your teeth. Nope, no puking. Now is not the time for that. You can breathe, it doesn't feel great to do so, but you can do it. So, that's what you do for a moment or two, then dig a fist into the ground and push yourself to your knees and from your knees to your feet. You stagger, take in fuzzy shapes – wooden slats, dull light pushing past, old farming equipment, the smell of gasoline – and you swallow the urge to retch or to fall over and weave your way to what looks like a door left ajar.

The music gets louder. And there they are, a man and a woman. Car windows down. Something in Norwegian warbling from the speakers. And there she is, braced against the hood, washed out but still rather beautiful – a split to her lip, hair a mess, and a gun pointing at her head.

Of course, this isn't the first time you've been faced with the prospect of losing her. You once chopped a man down to save her. But that's not the best example, is it? None of that was real. Well, the dead man was real and so was the blood on your hands. But, again, not the best example. That day in Rome was all pantomime. This right here, this is real.

She has no gun in her back pocket or she would have used it.  
She wouldn't have left you to possibly bleed out this time.

The woman kicks her in the back and you watch her face smack into the dirt. And she leans up on one arm and spits out a stream of red from her mouth, and she smiles and it looks so much like she used to be – a siren called Villanelle – that you almost smile in return from the shadows.

You almost smile. And she pushes upwards.

And you suppose that all those other days, in Paris and in London and in Rome, can't hold a candle to this day right here, right now. The two of you, reckless in the face of ridiculous odds, walking into flames when everyone else knows better, when everyone else knows to walk away.

You kick the door open. And the gun goes off.

/ /

**(day seventy)**

_There's no fanfare about it. It isn't proceeded by some heavy conversation or some heated argument. It's just another day, another day in this strange reality that you both reside in. She's tossing wood into the fireplace, a nice crackle and pop of smoke curling outward, and you look up from whatever you are doing to see her blow a tendril of hair out of her eyes as she sits down on the floor._

_And she glances at you then, grins a little, and so you slip from your chair and steal that grin away._

_You take it because you can. You take it because she wants you to. You take and she gives. You take and take and take. Until you can finally give something back. Until she is all over you, eager hands and roaming lips. Until she is naked and you are naked and there are new threads being tied between you, fine strings from your body to hers, knotted and perfect._

_She's gasping against you, straining as your fingers find her, and you feel sweat forming along your spine, and you spare a moment to remember that there are flames at your back. And then you catch a reflection of orange and yellow in her eyes, an inferno buried there as you slide into her, and you echo her pleasure – a moan for a moan – because she is gorgeous and she is yours and this is far from a fairy tale, far from a love so sweetly made, but this is all you have wanted._

_Since the day you met her. Since before you met her, too._

_Her tongue weaves into your mouth and you are spellbound, a captive to something stronger than everything else – your past, her past, murder and misdeeds – and you let her have you. All of you. The you you are proud of. The you you are fearful of. The you who can hurt. The you who can kill. And she takes and she takes and she takes. Until you can finally let go. Until you come against her lips and feel the rest of this silly, stupid world fall away._

_And she echoes your pleasure. A sigh for a sigh. Because you are hers, too._

_She gathers you up, arms and legs around you like you might escape. And she mumbles something into your hair, trickles of Russian cascading into your ear._

_“Mind repeating that?” You ask and she squeezes you closer, closer, closer._  
_“I said, it's about time, Tallulah Shark.”_

_And you chuckle into the space between her chin and the hollow of her throat. And you feel her laugh in return. And you feel the beating of her heart. And so you match your own rhythms to hers, until you both beat and breathe as one._

_Because you belong to each other now, don't you?_

_And that's all either of you ever wanted anyway. To belong somewhere. To someone._

_To belong to each other... at least for a little while..._

_...just for a little damn while._

/ / /

**[end]**

**Author's Note:**

> I've not had much time to write since the end of S3, but finally had a moment. Thanks to Cocteau Twins and their 'Four-Calendar Cafe' album, random ambient music, and Nite Jewel's 'Real High.' All mistakes are mine. Cheers.


End file.
